


A Home for Flowers

by faufaren



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Changeling - Freeform, Gen, Link dies in the great calamity, Link is a feral child, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Post-Canon, Team as Family, a little lovecraftian, brief retelling of canon, eldritch aesthetics, like for real, link hangs out with the goddess, mononoke elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29794917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faufaren/pseuds/faufaren
Summary: The Hero of this Hyrule is a lot more... wild than they expect.
Comments: 62
Kudos: 281





	1. Magnum Opus

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wildling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26600368) by [DreamHero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamHero/pseuds/DreamHero). 



> That's right, folks. It's another one of those "the LU Links meet Wild for the first time" fics. Only it's also combined with "what if Wild is like San from Princess Mononoke?" Y'know, because botw pretty much looks like a studio ghibli movie put into video game format. And of course, I couldn't help but add my own bias for lovecraftian vibes into it as well. 
> 
> This fic is also inspired in part by DreamHero’s ‘Wilding’. I was really moved by the concept of Link being much more intune with the magic of the natural spirits like koroks and fairies due to being altered in his time in the Shrine. So much love for the potential in this idea, my mind spat out a whole fic just focused on it. 
> 
> Linked Universe is lovingly created by jojo56830 from Tumblr. Check out their about page [here](https://linkeduniverse.tumblr.com/post/173747189369/linkeduniverse-about-this-is-linkeduniverse-101).

When Link was put in the Resurrection Chamber, he was already dead. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise. With injuries so extensive, so severe, it shouldn’t be so shocking to say that those wounds were fatal. But who would’ve thought that, when this was the person who everyone called Hero? 

This was the person the entire land of Hyrule had placed their hopes on. A warrior predestined to save them from Calamity. Wielding the Master Sword, with the goddess Hylia standing at his back. Surely such a person would be beyond something as mundane as death? 

Certainly, heroes can be wounded and bloodied, but in stories they’ve always gotten right back up. They have never failed to strike down the evil at the end of the day, no matter how great the obstacles or how grave their injuries are. In those stories, the hero never dies. 

Things were hectic towards the end. The corrupted legion had wrought utter destruction, and armies of monsters still roamed freely. Zelda had returned to Hyrule Castle to face Calamity Ganon alone. The Sheikah were spread thin, trying to follow their orders and protect survivors simultaneously. 

So when the legendary blade dulled, divine light draining away in the hand of the hero who still gripped it in death, and the Triforce mark upon that hand also waned – no one noticed. 

The Shrine of Resurrection is said to be capable of healing and restoring anything put in its Bed. So what happens when the shrine is activated, but what was to be resurrected has already gone? 

Repairing the body is easy enough. Flesh is sewn back together. Bones realign and fuse. Blood levels rise and equalize, failed organs are restored back into operation. All chemicals kept in perfect balance. The brain churns out new neurons and synapses fire automatically. A dead body kept alive in flawless condition, living in all senses of biology. 

But a body empty of life, nonetheless. 

The Shrine’s programmed intelligence considers this empty vessel placed upon its Bed, and thinks _this will not do._

It waits, at first. Technology does not understand how to create life out of nothing. There are no equations or formulas, no software ever written to quantify the existence of a soul. The Shrine has done all it can within the parameters of its intended function. Perhaps if it waits long enough, something will develop? 

Decades pass. Nothing happens. 

_This shall not do,_ thinks the Shrine once more. It has been created for a purpose: to restore anything put in its Chamber into perfect functionality. It has kept this body in prime physical health, but if there is no life to move this perfect body, it has no functionality. 

The Shrine is failing its directives. This shall not do. 

The Shrine is a piece of technology created at the height of a highly advanced civilization. It has been designed to be intelligent, capable of learning and solving problems that inevitably may be encountered in the complex organic matter it is meant to heal. It will follow directive. This new obstacle will not be the cause of first failure. 

If it’s impossible to create a life out of nothing, then perhaps there is a way to make one out of something that already exists? 

So the Shrine reaches out for materials to make a soul. Reaches far, far out. 

Finds nothing. No records of successful cases in producing life. No evidence of any real object or artifact capable of such a thing, though there have been a few historical occurrences where attempts have been made. Those have only resulted in disaster. 

It does not give up. The Shrine stretches itself out, past the realm of Hyrule and into the vast unknown, searching… searching… 

_...searching…_

It reaches out further than it probably intended to do so in its initial calculations. Past the unknown and into somewhere… unremembered. 

The shrine’s search stirs up ancient dust of the infinite beyond. Rustles the fabric of the primordial void. Its data-structure fingers dip into parts of the universe that have lain untouched for hundreds of thousands of years. 

It brushes against the edges of cosmic cesspools filled with old knowledge, old wisdom, and old Things that have not touched the perceivable plane since creation was born. It attracts the attention of these Old Things, because it has been a long time since something has wandered so close to the Verge, and the single-minded focus of _‘I must fill the empty vessel, I must find something, I must restore, this is my directive’_ intrigues them ever so slightly. 

The Old Things decide to indulge this fledgling, earnest creation of another creation. It is nothing to them, after all. 

They peek upon the reality from which this small existence grasps for them unknowingly. See the conflict, the violence, the tiny little lives that exist in it. The cyclical history from which this piece of world rises from, the aged spirits saturating its dirt. They see journeys and quests and adventures, as it continually expands for more exploration. They see the deities that have been worshipped, their priests and priestesses, and the goddess who watches over these small lives preciously. They only peek, very carefully, because even simple glances may shake apart those loose foundations called time and space for these little world nests. 

Strife. Curiosity. Devotion. 

They think, ah yes, this is what we can work with, because reaching into fragile things like mortal realities is terribly delicate work. 

So the Old Things craft the soul with what they are familiar with. The thing that has not changed since the birth of time: the Wilderness. The spirit of true nature – the slow but steady progress of natural growth, adaptable and untamed and unstoppable. 

They use the quiet sift of wind through grassfields, the soft ambience of critters singing in the underbrush and over treetops, the silent and stubborn growth of oaks and cedars and maples, and the pitter-patter of rain falling upon the leaves of those trees. The call of deer running through the forest, the howls of wolves in the mountains, the whinny of wild horses in the fields. 

It seems that this puny vessel has a purpose, the Old Things infer, though they’re not sure what the purpose is for or why it would so easily snuff out this vessel’s previous occupant, being so far beyond the puny matters of mortal concepts. Still they think it would be nice if the life they are constructing will last longer than that. Perhaps if they make it out of sturdier things, it will be better for this purpose? 

Therefore into the soul goes also the spontaneity of lightning sparks in a thunderstorm, the violent squall of highwinds, the savage whip of ocean spray against marbled cliffs. The marvel of the sunrise hitting the peaks of towering mountaintops, snow glistening in young light, the fatal beauty of barren icescapes and frozen rivers. The all-consuming rampage of wildfires. The searing heat of molten lava. The life persistence of ferns growing through cracks in pavement and fungi sprouting on rock faces. 

This is good, the Old Things think. What are they missing? 

It needs a gift, whispers one of them. So that it will not be lonely. 

That’s right. It will be the only one of its kind in existence, after all. With this taken into consideration, they distillate a blessing out of an infinitesimal fragment of their own essence. 

They say unto this new, infantile soul: _May your life be overgrown with wonder. May your heart fill with babbling creakwater and your mind swell with the lullabies of forgotten magic. May you breathe the ashes of dying stars and speak the language of infinite galaxies. From the dust of us you are born, and when the time comes, to us you will return._

On the day of the Great Calamity, Link, the Hero and blessed champion of the Goddess, bearing the soul of warrior’s courage, was placed into the Shrine of Resurrection. 

One hundred years later, something else emerges from it.


	2. Hello World

He opens his eyes with the heartbeats of galaxies pounding away in his eardrums and constellations blooming in his veins, thrumming a deafening tune that makes his bones quake. It sounds vaguely familiar. But he can’t imagine why it would. 

He’s so distracted by this that he almost misses the voice that is actually speaking to him. This one doesn’t sound familiar at all. She speaks to him with urgency, impressing upon him a duty he is meant to fulfill. He doesn’t understand. 

A purpose. They’d built him with a purpose in mind. What is his purpose? 

“Please, you are our last hope. You are the Light of Hyrule,” she says, and he doesn’t understand this at all, either. Is that his purpose? 

She calls him Link. He supposes that can be his name. They hadn’t thought to give him a name, since names are so fleeting, small conventions of the mortal planes. The name _Link_ feels as right to him as any other name. 

“Thank you for coming to us,” the voice says at the very end, just before he feels her attention shift away and depart from him. 

There’d been an odd note in her tone, a bit like sadness. He wonders if this means that she knows he isn’t the one who was originally put here. Does she know how he’s come to be here? Is he a substitute after all? Merely a last-minute replacement? He isn’t sure if he wants to be something like that. 

But still he climbs out of the capsule and takes the Slate, because the voice had said _please_ and something in him responds to that word. Strife, curiosity, and devotion – these are the foundations that his existence has been built on, and that word _please_ comes from at least one of those things. 

Please is something uttered hopelessly on the battlefield, surrounded by enemies and dead allies. It’s gasped out in vain beside the sickbed in the middle of a plague and murmured by desperate mothers with starving children. It is a word whispered fervently by children waiting for their precious older people to come home safely, curled over their storybooks with their tales of heroes and savior gods. Please is a prayer, and he understands _that_ , at least. 

He feels strangely raw. Soft. Still pliable, like clay that hasn’t yet had the time to set. Like coming out from a warm covering and into cold air. Still dripping with capsule fluids, crawling from the womb of the Shrine, shaky with the feeling of being vulnerable and exposed to something he can’t see. It’s not cold, but he feels like shivering anyway. 

His skin chaffes from the silent air and the scars twisting over his body prickle with oversensitivity once every so often. He wonders whose body this used to be. It is a tapestry of past hardship and unspoken pain, with so many of the scars denoting narrow escapes from death that he can’t keep track of them all. He wonders what this body would mourn if it knew what it lost. 

He also feels incredibly hungry. 

There are two chests holding strangely shaped pieces of cloth with wide holes sewn into them. The Slate tells him these are called clothes, which people wear to protect their skin from the elements. And also that these particular ones are apparently worn down and slightly ill-fitting. He puts them on with minimal difficulty, despite that. It seems to help him feel a little better. 

The moment he comes out of the shadows of the shrine and gets a good look at the world he has been given unto, he knows what love feels like. 

The sun shines down through fuzzy white clouds against a backdrop of pale blue, warming the chill that still lingers in his lungs. A breeze blows gently past, sending a lock of his hair to tickle his cheek and making waves glisten across the verdant grass, trees swaying and leaves rustling. Now this, he knows, is what beauty looks like. 

The cloaked man by the fire seems startled to see him. He sees the wide eyes in the shadows of that hood, staring at him with something like shock. This, at least, he understands very much. This beautiful world is startling. Everything is so terrifyingly, wonderfully new to him. 

“You are…” the old man starts softly, then trails off in a disconcerted manner. Those shadowed eyes of his look at the one called Link as if he could tell that this is not who he’d been waiting for, that he is looking at something sewn from things wholly different from his perception of recognized reality. 

The old man seems to get an inkling of it, as the alarm crests in his expression – and then the old man is turning away and blinking his eyes like he’d looked into the light for too long. He looks at Link again, and there is no longer any confusion or uneasy recognition, just the guile of an elderly man who invites him to sit at his campfire and offers a baked apple. 

There is the entire far-reaching cosmos steeped right into his marrow, but somehow a single baked apple makes him feel full.

* * *

He doesn’t find the Koroks. They come find him. He has barely wandered onto the map on the Sheikah Slate when they start popping up, one by one at first, and then when word seems to get around, they start ambushing him in whole crowds. 

“Who are you?” they ask, so endlessly curious. “Where did you come from?” 

“Who’s your Tree?” Is the oddest question he gets, because he can hear the capital-letter officiality of the word. It seems to mean something to the Koroks, but he doesn’t know how to ask about it. 

He also gets showered in compliments, for some reason. 

“You’re pretty!” many of the Koroks tell him enthusiastically. “We love the sound of your heart’s voice! You feel so familiar! You feel like home! And your soul is the nicest one we’ve ever seen!” 

“You look like mister Hero!” some of them exclaim, “Are you doing his journey for him? Mister Hero can’t come back, after all.”

They are excitable, lovely little creatures. Children of the forest who hail from a little patch of forest, aptly named Korok Forest, in the middle of somewhere called the Lost Woods. Link thinks that maybe he’d like to visit it sometime soon. 

The Koroks also seem to have taken it upon themselves to show him all the wonders of the land. 

They bring him seeds of all kinds, and he gratefully accepts them into his pockets. They bring him curiously-shaped twigs, shiny jewel-looking beetles, and clumps of dirt that are apparently very interesting. He also accepts these. Then they bring him actual jewels – rubies, opals, topaz, and sparkling sapphires still embedded in their chunks of ore. He’s quickly discovering that he has quite the weakness for shiny things. 

He receives a broken farmer’s hoe, a rusty sword, and one very pristine cleaning mop in bewilderingly good condition. The weapons don’t stop there. His slate fills up with polished halbergs and viciously spiked boomerangs and bedazzled broadswords taken from the royal family’s own arsenal. He receives more than five times he can carry. Soon he has to ask his little friends to ease up on the pointy things. 

“Big brother Hestu can help you with that,” one helpful Korok whispers to him. “Hestu is the best with space magic! But we hid his maracas! It was just a joke but he was really upset.” 

With this new information, some of the Koroks start giving him little golden seeds so he can return them to the one called Hestu in their place. He is told to keep these seeds away from food. They do smell a bit. 

In another instance, he gets a pile of acorns. He roasts them over a fire. They’re delicious. 

Soon he grows accustomed to hearing soft giggles in the foliage, the jingle of their bodies as they move, the quiet clicking of leaf propellers, the occasional poof of leaves as they come and go. The sing-song voices of Koroks is his lullaby as they trail after him, bouncing weightlessly on the wind.

* * *

The lasers shot from the broken machines embedded near the ruins of the Temple are easy enough to deflect, even as his scars burn faintly from a history he doesn’t know, but seeing the Statue of the Goddess makes him flinch. He doesn’t know why. 

“She’s called Hylia!” The Koroks tell him enthusiastically, when they notice how he looks at the statue. “She watches over Hyrule! We don’t know her very well though.” 

The Spirit Orbs he receives from the Shrines must have some sort of use, instead of just feeling like over-large marbles clinking around in his chest. He has an inkling they must have something to do with the Statue in the temple. They have the same sort of energy around them. But the thought of going back there and confronting the smiling stone face of the Goddess again makes his knees lock up. 

So the orbs remain, a metaphysical weight that takes a while to get used to.

* * *

The Great Plateau drops out into dizzying distances, and he’s struck with the vastness of the lands beyond, stretching all the way into the horizon. The only person-shaped being he has spoken to is the cloaked old man, who had turned out to be the spectral once-King of this land called Hyrule. The deception bothers him, and so does the story the ghost King tells him – imparting upon him the same duties and oaths that the voice from before had told him about. 

He finally gets a name to go with that voice he hears in his head sometimes. Zelda. 

He hadn’t understood when he first opened his eyes inside the Resurrection Shrine, and he still doesn’t now. But one thing he has learned since then is that this world is incredible and filled with life. If this thing called Calamity Ganon is threatening to take that away, then he won’t hesitate to fight. Also, the King gave him a warm doublet. So he can’t be all that bad. 

He doesn’t know what lies ahead of him. He can guess – more monsters, more shrines, and more towers to map. Those don’t concern him. What he can’t help but be a little apprehensive about is everything in between. He’s discovering what butterflies are, what tree branches are, and all the different types of mushrooms he can pick. There are still many things he doesn’t know about, though, and that unknowingness expands impossibly out before him. 

But the laughter of Koroks follows him everywhere he goes, and he is never alone.

* * *

He finds the fairy fountain first, before he even knows there’s a village nestled right next to it. 

It calls to him the same way that nearly-complete Korok circles, woodland waterholes, and hidden ore deposits do, like magnetic poles, or gravitational push. 

He’s barely stepped onto the luminescent orange toadstools before he feels a tug from deep within, and he stumbles, just barely catching himself against the giant plant bulb. He feels something expand just beneath his solar plexus, almost painful, and the mental poke he gives at it ends up causing it to burst out of him in a crest of power. 

It’s a heady warmth that rushes down his spine, through his toes, into the mushrooms beneath his feet, into the plant fibers against his hands, where it spreads outwards from him in a nearly-tangible wave. The fountain blooms. 

“What’s this?” exclaims the Great Fairy who had just reawakened from her faint slumber, having not expected such a dramatic rejuvenation when she hadn’t even received the rupees she should have required. She coos when she sees him. “Oh, aren’t you a beautiful child?” 

She reaches out to brush the tips of her fingers over his hair, his cheeks, his shoulders, as if she could not help herself from touching even if she wanted to. She seems to take even more delight in the way he blushes furiously under her attention. 

“Whoever made you has done a splendid job,” Cotera tells him. “You are a _masterpiece_. If you will, please, seek out my sisters. I’m sure they would love to meet you.” 

The lesser fairies surrounding the fountain giggle and chime as they dance around him, preening before his eyes like they want to impress him somehow, despite the fact that he’s already staring at them with what must be pure awe on his face. He claps for them anyway, and the little fairies flicker brightly, pleased with themselves. 

Like their greater variant, they help themselves to him, playfully tugging at his bangs or hiding in the folds of his clothes much with the same manner that Cotera had touched him. He may have been founded on three cardinal aspects, but it is raw nature and untamed growth that patchwork him together. Fairies are somewhat similar to that, so he wonders if that’s the reason they’re being lured so close to him. 

He promises to restore Cotera’s other sisters, scattered as they are about the land. And bring her actual rupees, next time, since she seems to like the shiny things as well. After a moment’s thought, he blows her a farewell kiss in a mirror of the way the Fairy had done when she enhanced his clothes. 

She laughs, soft and musical, ever so delighted by his silly gestures. 

“Blessings on your journey, sweet child,” she croons.

* * *

Coming into Kakariko Village is… a little bit terrifying. 

It’s entirely different from the stable at Dueling Peaks, where mostly everyone is a temporary fixture, and the staff is used to dealing with eccentric personalities of every type. There are only other travelers and merchants coming and going, focused on their own businesses. There’s a certain comfort to be found in the liminality of stables, these places of betweenness. There, he is only a drifter, just like everyone else. 

Talking to the Sheikah is not like talking to lone travellers on the road either, where most people don’t blink twice at someone behaving just a little off. The small handful of people he’d encountered all seemed to be too busy to really notice the gaps in his social mannerisms. 

But here, everyone is so… _established_. Affixed to their place in this world. 

Still, he finds it charming. He loves the _torii_ that seem to lead him into the village and the numerous wooden windchimes hung on rope clacking in the gentle gust, as if announcing that he’s crossing the boundary into another’s territory. The smell of plum blossoms drifts pleasantly in the air, along with fire smoke and cooking and garden dirt. He can’t help but gaze in wide-eyed amazement at all the buildings, nestled into rock terraces and surrounded by dirt paths. There’s the inn and the produce shop, but the most exciting mercantile stores are the fletcher and the armorer – he wants to touch _everything._

Thankfully, he’s discovered early on that other people don’t seem to be able to see the Koroks. It would’ve been embarrassing to have to explain again to strangers why he’s talking to thin air. 

The moment he walks into the building, Impa opens her eyes fully, old creases and pockmarks stretching across her wizened face as she blatantly stares at him. There’s the same disturbed confusion in her expression that the old King had when he saw Link for the first time, like she doesn’t know what she’s looking at and she isn’t sure if she should be wary or not. 

“You have... changed, Link,” is the first thing she says, and he doesn’t say anything when she asks him if he still remembers her. He doesn’t know her. 

The conversation with Impa is just as confusing as all the previous times he’s heard about his apparent destiny, the history he’s forgotten, and the duty he must honor. He knows now the identity of the face he wears. But it isn’t his, because he is something new. 

She asks him if he’s ready. He’s about to say yes – what is the point in delaying? It doesn’t mean anything to him either way – but a tug in his chest stops the word from coming out. 

It’s the same tug from before, when he restored the fairy fountain, the same instinct that gives him his awareness that he is something Else. But this time it has a hint of warning to it. Cautionary, like a voice saying _tread very carefully_ woven into the subtle force. 

Impa has made it clear that the Hero that this vessel used to be was blessed by the Goddess. If he is to embark on this quest for this dead Hero, then by extension he will be taking on the mark of the Goddess herself. That he still hasn’t come up with the gut to face Her properly strikes him wrongly on many levels. 

The Spirit Orbs clack uncomfortably within him, nestled somewhere near his heart. He’s sitting on a lot more of them now, having found Shrines along the way, and the hum of them makes his teeth clatter at night. 

He says no. Impa looks upon him with disappointment, but he can’t bring himself to be affected by it much. When he descends the steps leading up to Impas’s home, he studiously avoids looking at the goddess statue gazing benevolently down at the water lillies in the pond.

* * *

He departs from the village soon enough. 

He knows, rationally, that they only see a boy with blond hair, the only notable thing about him is the slate on his hip. But he also knows that the screaming monkeys that live in the back of their brains smell something different. These are the basic instincts that all people have, no matter how far they’ve evolved from their ancient forms. The part of their hindbrains that still remember, in long-forgotten ages, of living as prey for higher beings and cowering beneath uncaring gods. 

Staying in this kind of place, so grounded in itself and crowded with people, makes him feel too big for his skin, boxed in and cramped. It makes the seams holding himself together feel loose and shaky. It makes his teeth itch. Thinking people thoughts as he tries to immerse himself in the different bundles of arrows in the fletcher’s shop seems to help, but it’s hard to maintain it for too long. 

Soon he’s back in the rough mountain paths of the open world. He has the chatter of the Koroks trailing after him and bird song in his ears. The wind seems to sigh its relief alongside him, as he feels his joints settle again. All is right again.

* * *

Despite all the beauty this world has – with its pouring rains and lively forest glades and animals of every kind flitting about the foliage – he still can see all the ways Malice has sunken its claws deep into the flesh of the earth. The land looks sometimes as if it is choking on its own ashes. 

There's a sort of darkness to the landscape, and it isn’t just because of the whorl of Calamity Ganon around the castle looming on the horizon. It’s heavy, like the winds are laden with unseen sickness. Like rot creeping up from deep within the earth, poisoning the rivers and spreading everywhere like an infectious fever.

He isn’t getting anywhere in running away from the goddess statues. Not when this heaviness is everywhere around him, crawling out of the very frameworks of Hyrule. 

The Blood Moon is his final strike. 

When he wakes up in the middle of the night with the ashes of his campfire swirling around his face and the black-magenta wisps of Malice rising out of the ground, the world is bathed in red. He tries to blink it away, but the moon is a bright, eye-searing vermillion that seems to pierce through his eyelids and soak into his skin. He tries to catch his breath but instead he chokes on the thick soot of Malice. 

Everywhere he hears the roars and cries of monsters, growing in number and surging to a crescendo as they’re resurrected from the beyond. The song of the crimson moon echoes in his ears as clearly as those monstrous screams, chanting _stand up and destroy. Rise at my call, serve me. Destroy all those who refuse to bow._

He hears it buzz in his veins. Seethe between his ribs. He can taste it on his tongue. His blood _sings_ with it. The melody of this horrifying red moon roars so loudly in his mind that he doesn’t register anything else. 

**_Destroy_** he hears, and before he knows it, there’s an entire river’s crossing of monster camps burning behind him. Blown to smithereens. The remains of decimated monster populations strewn around him. The moon is its familiar pale-silver self again. 

“Blood moon,” he hears from the next traveller he meets, when he asks about it, and to his horror he finds out how frequently it happens. 

This cannot happen again. To lose himself like that, so overwhelmed by this insidious magic drenched into the land, not even knowing what he has done until after everything is already over – no. He can’t allow that to happen again. 

This time he had been in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but empty wilderness and monster nests. What if the next Moon rises when he is camped near a stable? Or in the middle of a village?

* * *

Using the warp function of the Sheikah slate, he goes back to the Temple Statue. A bit shame-faced, he has to admit. 

The back of his neck prickles as he lowers himself to his knees before the weathered monument of the Goddess, feeling a thousand eyes watching him from every angle. The spirit orbs he’s collected clatter almost excitedly against his ribs. 

Trying to ignore the unseen inspection, he looks heavenward – not downward, not lowering his head, when this is not his goddess and he has no right to bow before her. He whispers a prayer: 

_Goddess Hylia, Divine Radiance of the Heavens, this lowly one begs for your regard._

At first, nothing happens. The air remains still, dust motes swimming lazily in stray pools of light. He begins to think that he’ll never get a response. Perhaps the goddess doesn’t even want to acknowledge his existence. 

And then. 

The world stops. 

Time suspended in the air. The thousand pairs of eyes condense into one, and the sensation of being watched increases by a hundred fold. It comes down on him like a physical weight, nearly intoxicating, so overwhelming he thinks he may faint from bearing the attention of a higher being. 

She is here. With difficulty, he draws himself together and continues with his appeal, pulling the words out of his mind with nearly palpable strain. 

_I know I am not one of yours. I am the servant of another, and it is not my place to ask for your help. But still I come to plead for your blessing. Your people need a savior and they believe I am still their Hero._

There is the flurrying sound of birds taking flight, just at the edge of his focus, just out of sight. His ears twitch, he feels feathers brush lightly against his cheek, radiating warmth like a summer day, and he has to resist the automatic urge to turn and see what it’d been. He knows he won’t find anything there. 

_“Child.”_

Her voice, when it alights upon him, is tender and soft, like a ray of sunlight, like a spring mountain breeze. It shines down from an invisible above, warming his face and shoulders. It is so powerful it rattles him to the core. 

_“You are woven together by the Old and Unknown, held firm by the Wilds. The hands that made you precede me.”_

He startles at this, but she does not give him the chance to dwell on that new knowledge. 

_“Though you wear his body, you are not my Champion. I cannot claim you as my chosen Hero. You carry the sanction of another, and my sacred Blessing is not yours to have. You cannot hold my Mark.”_

He lets out a slow, careful breath. Hylia’s voice is toneless and without inflection, but the words she uses sounds like she doesn’t like him. Perhaps she’s displeased by his presence in her domain. Is he an intruder in her eyes, walking around in the stolen flesh of her favorite child? 

_Are you mad that I’m here?_ He tries not to tremble as he sends this little inquiry up, squeezing his eyes shut in preparation for a goddess’ wrath to descend on him. 

He’ll do it even if Hylia refuses to give her blessing. Her world is beautiful, and it is not Hyrule’s fault that all they have is an imposter in their hero’s body. It is not even Hylia’s fault that her champion has died and he now walks with a dead boy’s footsteps. He will help them anyway, because he wouldn’t be able to take it if he saw all the wonders of this land snuffed out by Calamity’s wanton hatred. 

It will be almost impossible, if the Goddess does not give him the divine aid that this journey requires. He isn’t sure how hard it will be, just that his gut rolls at the thought of facing those trials alone. But he is sure he won’t fail. He’s made too well for that. 

To his surprise, a warm wind blows past him, taking the locks of his hair to lift with it. 

_“Peace, child,”_ is the response, so very soft and tranquil. 

His breath hitches as unseen feathers caress his face and the sunlight streaming down gently wraps around his shoulders, like the Goddess herself breathes her reassurance to him. 

_“I mourn my fallen hero. But I do not hate you. You are a wondrous, new thing. I see the devotion shine brightly in you. I see your love for my realm. The hands who made you are beyond me, but I know the wilderness and old magic you are pieced from are mine.”_

His breath catches in his throat again, and this time he cannot help the tears that come to his eyes. To hear acceptance from a voice he has long expected to reject him. To know that he is doing something right, when all he has is a vague instinct to guide him through this unknown, unlearned world… It means something more than he can ever describe, even with countless cosmic languages humming in his mind. 

_“Though you are not born of the weft of my children, I grant you my Favor. Know that wherever you journey, the Goddess Hylia will always smile upon you.”_

The tears wet his cheeks, and he lets them trail down his face and neck as he still kneels with his face raised to the carved facade of the Goddess. There’s no shame to be found in crying, he knows, when these are tears of celebration and he is overcome with gratitude. 

_“Go and bring good to Hyrule.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I would’ve liked to skip to post-canon, it was very enjoyable to write about all the ways this new link’s journey would have differed from original hero’s journey (and the ways they still converge). Tags will be updated accordingly. Don’t worry, LU links will arrive soon! They are just taking their time.


	3. Tree

Sometimes, it gets a little too much. 

The stables are bright. Loud with the braying of merchants’ mules and horses in the stalls. The clatter of spoons against pots, dishes being cleared away. There are at least over half a dozen people at every stable, each one a little shining pinprick of life even against the illuminated backdrop of campfires and lamps. 

People are different from Koroks and animals, and even the iridescent great fairies and their lesser counterparts. They’re loud with themselves, overflowing with life. Like they’re constantly coloring outside the lines just by existing. Where Koroks simply babble with the rustle of leaves, and fairies peal softly like stars in the night sky, people sound like they’re shouting into the mountains even when they whisper. 

They carve out their places in the world, building up structures and stables and villages, instead of blending with it. Sometimes that impresses Link – the way Hylia’s creations are so strong in their existences that they simply part the sea of reality just by walking through it, instead of finding empty spaces where they can fit in. 

But other times, the noise of their busy minds and bright presences only serve to fog up his mind and blind his senses. Even the transient liminality of the stables isn’t enough to make it better. Sometimes the world of people becomes too much and all Link wants to do is _hide._

There’s a stable coming up ahead. Link knows, because already he can feel the clamor of conversation and cattle bells buzzing against his skin. He’s been on the road for several days at this point, seeking out shrines and their spirit orbs, with nothing but the Koroks and the occasional monster encounter to keep him company. The chill that has never really left him has set itself deep in his joints, aching with every movement. The thought of a stable’s hearth-warmth should appeal to him. 

But he can hear people talking in the distance and suddenly his feet won’t take him a step further. 

Instead they take him to a nearby tree, and then up it, until he’s sitting high above in its branches. He curls his knees to his chest and jams his cheek into the tree’s bark, feeling the ridges of it press into his scars through the fabric of his hood. His fingers ache. His stomach shivers with that ever-present chill. He realises he’s trembling. But the tree is strong and sturdy, deeply rooted into the ground, with many decades aged into its thick trunk. It holds him steadily and tucks him safely into its foliage. 

There’s the faint poof of Koroks, and their little feet clamber over his head and shoulders as they investigate this strange behavior. They peek under his hood, trying to figure out if this is another game he’s playing with them. 

“Yaha! Are you okay? You don’t look so good,” they chatter around him, not quite understanding why he’s doing this but nevertheless catching on to how he has folded into himself like he wants to escape from the world. “You’re all shaky.” 

“He feels like a sapling in a storm,” one Korok whispers, their tapered elm leaf face tilting in worry. 

Link manages a small smile, a thought of reassurance half pushed out towards the Koroks. He’s grateful that creatures of nature are much easier to communicate with, unlike people. _Things are bright right now,_ he tells them. Then he closes his eyes and turns back to shake against tree bark. 

The Koroks seem to understand his need for _less_ , and so they stop speaking and quiet themselves. The flutter of their presences diminish and smooth away until they just feel like a pile of leaves around him. If he could muster up the mind for it, he would’ve felt the usual amazement at their ability to hide themselves away in plain sight. At the moment, though, he can only feel relief and gratitude. 

He tries to wait out the tremble of his body, but it doesn’t seem to be getting better. He tries to shut everything out, but doing that just makes the slime of Calamity coating over the world all the more obvious to his senses. Wrapping his arms around his head as if that would protect him, Link scours about in his head for something better to focus on. 

At first, he finds nothing but the blinding lights of the people at Woodland stable, less than a hundred steps away. They clamor at his senses, battering against him. He tastes the bitter of Malice’s stain on the wind. The acrid smell of corruption in the night. There’s nothing but more things to wear him down. 

Nothing, except… there. Far to the north and slightly west, there’s a spot that hums with pure energy, vivid and clean. And very, very old. 

It’s a beacon in his heart. 

His knees creak when he uncurls himself and drops from the tree to the ground, but his mind has tunneled in on that little spot in the distance and he has no attention to give to anything else. He moves blindly towards it, putting one foot painstakingly in front of the other, already tasting the purity of that place on his tongue. 

It’s nighttime and there are monsters roaming in his path, and monsters that sprout from the dirt in his path, but he doesn't falter a single step.

* * *

When he arrives at the Lost Woods, It’s dawn, and he’s overcome with the thought of _I know this place._ It should’ve made him apprehensive. He knows he’s never been here before, but no other location he’s travelled to has ever struck such familiarity into him the way this eerie, misty forest does. 

He catches shifting silhouettes in the fog, small shadows flitting about in the swirls. Noises echo a little too loudly and for too long, and woodland animals, half-obscured in the haze, approach curiously to stare at him as he passes them by. The branches of leafless trees twist into a new position every time he glances away. 

The feeling of being watched lingers on his back, but it isn’t the deer or foxes. It isn’t even the same as coming before one of the Goddess’ sacred statues, silent and solemn. These eyes feel much more... _mischievous._ Neither malicious nor benevolent, but simply filled with the desire to play. Laughter rises out of the white fog every once in a while, gleeful and directionless, and he hears the whispering song of spirits, just out of sight. The urge to join them in dancing in the mist rises so swiftly it takes him by surprise. 

But the tug from before rises to the forefront again, and his feet follow its guidance instead, taking a winding path past the eerie revelry and deeper into the woods. 

The moment he steps into Korok Forest, it’s like finally coming home. 

Trees towering over him, casting a canopy of leaves over his head. The sunlight dappling the verdant ground, painting the air with golden rays. He smells wet soil and ferns and pollen. He can feel how fertile the land is here, how rich it is with life. It is comforting and inviting and _natural_ in a way that the quiet din of stables or busy bustle of villages have never allowed him to feel. Here, he feels like he can finally breathe. 

He’s never had a home, he doesn’t come from one, and he’s only heard of the term from passing travelers who tell him how they miss their home village. But if he were to ever call a place home, this – this would be it. 

There are more Koroks than he can count, and they all chitter excitedly at the sight of him. Some of them dart back into the grass and disappear, but most of them come up close to greet him. 

“Yahaha! You’re here, you’re here!” they cry in delight. They tug at his sleeves and poke his ankles, urging him forward. “We’ve been waiting for you!” 

Link lets himself be ushered along, trying not to trip over the little creatures as they skip at his knees and tumble over each other and float along with their tinkling twig propellers. One Korok decides that it’s better to simply sit on his head and direct him forward by waving their little berry stick around. 

A laugh of his own bubbles out of him, something airy and warm rising in his chest, expanding until he begins to feel like he just might float on the air like the Koroks surrounding him. 

The enthusiasm and happiness the Koroks express at his mere arrival is so endearing, so enchanting, he can’t help but give in to the temptation to join them in their frolic. He shucks off his shoes and his socks, feeling dirt squish between his toes and small pebbles embed themselves into his soles. 

He leaps into puddles. He twirls in the falling leaves. He tumbles and skips and laughs into the sunshine – dancing as the Koroks do, playing as they play. 

At the center of it all, where they all lead him to, is the biggest tree he has ever seen. It is unreal. He looks up and up, trying to comprehend the size of this magnificent tree, but he doesn’t seem to be able to even fit the entirety of it into his line of vision. It rains cherry blossom petals down, its roots are colossal monuments he has to climb over or simply walk under. This is the guardian of all the Koroks, he realises. The heart of Korok Forest. 

Then it breathes and comes alive. 

“Hoh? Did I doze off again?” the Tree murmurs, while branches shift and shower down petals, as if awaking from a long nap. Even with just these careless words, Link has to close his eyes against that deep, ancient rumble. Like the creaks and groans of thousand-year-old wood, reverberating thickly in the air. “Well, well, so you have finally decided to come visit me. I had started to wonder…” 

The weight of the being’s attention comes fully down upon him now, and though it is worlds away from Hylia’s devastating divinity, it still leaves him breathless. 

“I am known as the Great Deku Tree. I welcome you, Child of Wilds.” 

His ears flutter a bit at the tips, and Link nearly shivers. So this is the voice of a being more than ten thousands years old, who’s been a part of this land since it was named Hyrule. No wonder he can feel this place from halfway across the continent. 

A word bubbles to his mind and it’s out of his mouth before he can think twice about what it means or why he knows it. 

“I greet you, Grandsire,” he says, trying not to get distracted by the discomforting rasp in his throat, speaking with vocal cords that have not seen use in weeks. 

“Ah… a title I have not heard in quite some time,” comes the creaking reply, sounding somewhat nostalgic. “The ways of Old faded from this land long before kings and queens made their mark upon it. That they return with you brings back some… echoes of memories I thought were lost.” 

He can’t help but ask, because he knows great entities such as the Deku Tree do not use their words haphazardly. “Lost, not forgotten?” 

“Lost, indeed. Some memories become so old they can only echo, across great distances of history. Lost to the ages, you may say, though now I realise that things such as the Old cannot be entirely gone – simply adrift, until they eventually find root once again.” 

There’s a pause, then a deep rumble, as if the turning of the Deku Tree’s focus from sentimental topics is a physical event. “Tell me, young one,” he says, “What have you come here for?” 

Link thinks about it, very carefully. “I was seeking sanctuary, first,” he begins, furrowing his brow as he struggles with finding the right words to describe the singular focus he’d felt on his way to these woods. “And I think I’ve found it. But now I feel that there’s another reason why I was led here.” 

“Hm… Could it possibly be the object behind you?” 

The prompt takes a second to register, then he whirls around. He catches sight of a stone pedestal, sunlight streaming down, pale flowers glowing brightly around the clearing, and – a sword. His breath catches. 

Struck into the triangular facade in the ground, the sword bears countless of chips in its edge, a hundred scratches in its hilt. The winged crossguard no longer retains its polish and the blade itself is filthy with age, rust clinging and mud darkening the metal. Yet all the dirt in the earth could not hide how the sword pulses with imposing power. 

He wonders how he could have ever possibly missed it when he entered the forest. It feels like the Goddess herself has been imbued into the very atoms of this weapon. 

“Grandsire,” he whispers, afraid that a volume louder than that would disturb the ancient spirit resting within the blade. “What is that?” 

Overhead, the Deku Tree tells him, “This is an archaic relic of ages past. All the Heroes of this world have wielded it at some point in their histories, to strike down the great evils that afflicted their land. In fact, one hundred years ago, those very hands of yours have swung this sword with great skill… though it matters not, now. 

“It has known many names. The Blade of Evil's Bane. The Sword that Seals Darkness. The Sacred Sword of Legend. But the most common moniker, I believe, is the _Master Sword_.” 

Link stares, his feet rooted to the ground. Master Sword. Even the name itself resounds with innate power. He can’t decide whether to look away out of respect or keep watching this sword as if it would pull itself out of the stone and run him through, even without a hand to swing it. 

After a few moments of frozen silence, the call of the Deku Tree is what finally pulls his eyes away. 

“Young one.” 

Jerking a bit as if coming out of a dream, Link turns halfway and looks over his shoulder to see the Deku Tree gazing at him solemnly. There is a deep understanding in those hollows, overshadowed by branches laden with cherry blossoms in semblance of brows, which takes him by surprise. 

“You are not the Hero that body once was, but you have still decided to take on the Hero’s unfinished duties.” 

Link nods, though he wonders where the Deku Tree is going with this. 

“Yet you do not confront this journey alone. I sense that the Goddess has laid her touch upon you.” 

Again Link nods. He has prayed to the Goddess many times since his first meeting in the temple ruins. Every time, he comes out stronger, more durable. He feels his body being tempered like live steel with every spirit orb he offers up. At the end of every prayer, he thanks the Goddess and he feels her tender response. Hylia’s Favor warms his skin, like a kiss on his forehead, or a diadem on his head, made of pure light. 

“Then I believe you have received the right to wield the Master Sword.” 

A hum has started up in his ears. It is a song, ancient and mesmerizing, echoing from somewhere in his heart, someplace he will never be able to fully comprehend, with a flesh mind and mortal life, but will always follow him wherever he goes. 

“I don’t know if I’m worthy,” he says with a voice shaky with uncertainty. The song buzzes like static beneath it all, a layer of white noise that makes him feel as if his vision was drifting three inches too high above his eyes. 

The rumbling voice of the Deku Tree comes again, floating through the noise. “How many boons has the fair Goddess bestowed upon your spirit?” 

He’s not sure. Too many to keep track. The call of the shrines is like a compass in his mind, their sacred presences burning bright even when they’re completely buried underground. He has been very thorough. A third of the map in the Slate hasn’t yet been filled in and already the blue diamonds of shrines are taking over the screen. 

“Pull the sword when you are ready, sapling. Let it tell you whether you have been judged worthy or not.” 

With the hum of the ancient song loud in his ears, and the voice of the Deku Tree guiding him, there isn’t anything to do but to follow the tug at his feet and walk up to the stone dais. 

The moment he reaches out and takes a hold of the grip, with its green-and-violet cross wrapping, the spirit of the blade stirs awake and rushes up to meet him. His eyes fall half-shut as he focuses. The song falls away, note by note. Instead, another voice comes chiming like a distant bell heard over the mountain range. It is faded like the polish on the pommel, or the shine on the blade, less of actual words and more like a collection of intent and inquiry.

_You are not the Master I know._

He sucks a breath in and holds it, trying to figure out if the spirit is displeased with him. He can’t quite tell, not when the voice is so small and faint he almost has to strain his ears to hear it. “I’m not,” he answers truthfully. “I’m sorry, your Master is dead.” 

_Why do you have the hands of the one who once wielded me? Why do you speak with his voice?_

“The Shrine needed something to fill the flesh. Your Master left before it could bring him back.” He can’t help his voice turning apologetic. Perhaps he should know better, but it is hard to remember when he is the only one of his kind. When he thinks about how he came to be, it is all too easy to feel like he’d stolen something he shouldn’t have. “It found me instead.” 

The blade spirit is silent for a long, contemplative moment. 

“I’d understand,” he says when the lack of response becomes unnerving, “If you don’t want me.” 

Silence for a bit more. He resigns himself to waiting, all he has to say having already been spoken. 

Then the chime comes drifting close again, and it tells him, _I am the Goddess blade crafted from her own divine steel. I was forged by hand in the flames of the three Golden Deities by the chosen Hero’s first incarnation. You and I are not dissimilar._

He startles at that. It is a strange analogy to use when the source of his origin is so far from everything in Hylia’s domain. He is no sacred blade, for sure. 

As if knowing his confusion, the blade spirit continues, _I sense the care and attention that was put into your creation. It is no insignificant amount. You were forged with the best of everything your makers used._

“Oh,” he breathes, feeling surprised and reassured and deeply flattered all at the same time. 

_My Master died too early. But he was tired in the end. It would have been cruel to make him return only to face his failures._

He hesitates, then he says softly, “I think so too.” 

He’s seen all the ruins of villages and towns strewn about in his travels. The tragedy of Hyrule is present everywhere he goes, and he’s not unaware of all the people who had died in the Great Calamity. It is hard to miss when he finds rows of rust-marked graves in the fields and tiny grass-covered mounds at the bottom of hills. Still, it is only unattached knowledge, and he finds more beauty than ruin. He loves this quiet, untamed world, but he thinks that if he were the old Hero, he’d only be able to see all the ways his defeat had destroyed the Hyrule he’d once known. 

_Though you have no Blessing, I sense the Goddess has granted you something else. Your faith is steady. Your strength is worthy…_

_And your soul,_ the blade spirit finishes with. _It is beautiful._

This time he can’t help it. He ducks his head and blushes. His eyes water and he blinks rapidly, because he feels the open candor with which the spirit speaks. 

_You are permitted to wield the Master Sword._

“Thank you,” he says, heart in his throat. “I will use it with honor and care.” 

_Affirmative._

With that closing statement, the spirit of the blade leaves him and he finds himself alone in his head again. There is no longer any song, no hum in his skin. Everything is quiet except for the rustle of wind through leaves and the barely restrained excited chatter of Koroks in the foliage. 

He rises, and the sword comes free of stone as easily as pulling a blade from a sheathe. He blinks down at it, discovering that all the rust and dirt has been scrubbed from it, and though a few nicks and scratches still marr the metal, its surface now shines with new polish. As if the sword has woken up now, he thinks somewhat idly in the quiet stillness of his mind. 

“Well done,” says the Great Deku Tree, and like that, the spell is broken. The Koroks rush forward to surround him, jumping and tumbling and floating, to tell him their own congratulations. 

“Well done, well done!” They chant, repeating their Tree’s words as if to mimic him in their musical voices. “We knew you could do it! We’ve always believed in you!” 

He looks down when one Korok tugs lightly on the fabric of his pants. “Now that you have the sword, does this mean you have to leave?” The Korok asks shyly. “Will you play with us again?” 

This gets them going again with new vigor. “Let’s play!” They all start saying, poking at his still-bare feet and pulling at his shirt. “Don’t leave yet!” 

A laugh bubbles out of him, light and happy, and he swiftly sorts the sword in his hand into the Slate, leaving all his weapons unequipped. How can he refuse them? 

“I’ll stay a little more,” he says, and the Koroks cheer, launching themselves into a flurry of excitement. They pull him into their midst, and once again he lets his feet move into the dancing rhythm of their movement, lets his arms move freely to the pattern of their little red berry sticks. They climb all over him, and he’s cajoled into tossing a few of them high up into the air, where they catch the wind with their leaf propellers and come floating gently down. 

A few fairies come floating over, and they twirl around him playfully, adding their musical voices to the laughter of Koroks. Even Hestu comes to join in, when Link skips over to the big Korok and shakes his hands like he was holding maracas, smiling wide when he seems a little bashful in front of the little Koroks. Only a bit of encouragement is needed before Hestu’s percussions are ringing through the air.

Above his head, he can hear the deep, rumbling chuckles of the Great Deku Tree. He’s surrounded by laughter and little leafy faces and he has never felt more like he belongs than he does in that moment.

* * *

Eventually, all great things come to an end. But it’s a sweet end, because he knows he can always return, and the Koroks will inevitably follow him everywhere. He leaves the Forest and saunters back to Hyrule, feeling positively serene. 

And indeed, all great things come to an end. 

He frees all the divine beasts, uncovers all the shrines, greets all the Champions and endures their too-long, too-knowing ghostly gazes. But they seem to understand, if a bit sadly, and their gifts are tucked preciously into his chest, right alongside his heart. 

He goes to Hyrule Castle. Malice in the throne room, pulsing like the guts of a bokoblin. 

Calamity Ganon is a monster the likes of which he has only gotten a taste of from his battles with the Blights. But the Champions are ready. And so is Link. He draws the Master Sword, and it sings in his grip. 

Evil swirls into the gargantuan form of Dark Beast Ganon. Zelda sends him the Bow of Light. His teeth rattle with its divine purity. 

The core of Dark Beast is exposed by Zelda’s power, and Link lines up his sights. He breathes in, holds it. Time slows to a crawl. His arrow flies true. Ganon is torn asunder. 

He sees Zelda for the first time – haloed with light, power of the Goddess shining so bright in her it pours out of her eyes and pools in her veins. She feels like a star going supernova. He has to squint to see her. Zelda raises her hand against the whorling mass of Calamity and then he can’t see her at all. 

All great things end, and Link’s great journey ends with the howling wail of Ganon as it is banished from the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is absolutely NOT driven solely by my endless love for the korok forest area in botw with its hazy golden filter light and playful music and the little adorable koroks who charmed the hell out of my stone cold heart.  
> I can’t believe they made the great deku tree a gigantic sakura tree. Because of _course_ they did. I love it. And hestu is absolutely lovely. Never stop shalaka-ing, my friend. 
> 
> Also, this work is becoming much longer than my original calculations. More ideas just keep popping up as I’m writing the parts… *sneakily ticks up chapter count*


End file.
